Add eel to the list

Earlier this week, I had a chance to go visiting in the kampung. Those are the parts of town where 'normal' people live. I was fed lunch at one of the houses. I had rice (of course), vegetable soup, and some small boiled shrimp - WHOLE.

However, the piece de resistance was a purchased snack food. It was offered to me in a plastic bag. It was obvious that they were whole - with the heads. They were probably about 8 inches long (but curled) and not very big around. So, I agreed to sample half of one, my companion getting the other half. Fortunately, I got the tail end. They were very crunchy and honestly did not have a lot of flavor. I don't think I'll be seeking pelut (eel) out any time soon, but I do need to get my kids - especially the girls - to try them!

Bon appetite!

Coconuts!

Yesterday while I was playing volleyball, a young man came wanting to harvest some coconuts. There are tall coconut trees on either side of the court, loaded with coconuts. So, he set a ladder against the trunk to cover the first twelve or so feet, and then shinnied up the rest of the way. (The trunk did lean a little one way, so that should make it a little easier.) I'd guess the top was about 40 feet off the ground. As one who is scared of heights, I cringed.

He dropped 12-15 coconuts...there were many more, but they must not have been ready or he had what he wanted. He actually only took about 5, leaving the rest with us. When Indonesians have a chance to eat, everything else stops, so we had a snack in the middle of our game.

I was also able to bring a coconut home to enjoy with the family. Here I am opening it with a multi-purpose knife/machete. It took a lot of whacks (or else it would have burst open on falling from 40 feet).


Here I am finishing the delicate part - a little opening in the top without spilling the milk.

Here is the milk that we got out of the coconut (about a pint). Then, on the inner surface there's also some meat that is edible. So we sampled that. None of us were inspired by the flavor of the milk or meat, but we got a cultural lesson. Coconut is a prevalent food ingredient here and the milk is also used medicinally.

My dad ocassionally uses to use the English word "coconut" to refer to the human head, especially in the phrase "bump your coconut." In Indonesian the word for head is "kepala" and the word for coconut is "kelapa." Since they're so close, I often have fun intentionally mixing them up. Indonesians usually laugh, but they never use the word "kelapa" to refer to their "kepala".

The Car - A Toyota KIJANG

At long last, here are pictures! This is a 1995 model. It's worth about $5500, believe it or not. We're hoping that it won't depreciate; most cars in this age range haven't been in the last few years. Some actually appreciate.

Don't let the SUV look fool you. There's only a 1.8L engine under the hood! It is a straight drive. Most cars here are (and I imagine almost 100% this old are).


We did have some body work done after we bought it. There were some areas under the doors on both sides that had rusted through.


It is a little worn, but most importantly, the A/C works great! Actually, I laughed with Beth last night when I commented: this is the first car we've had with keyless entry. We're moving up! (I'm sure this was not a factory installed feature.)

The kids were happy when they learned that we were getting the inboard facing rear seats. These were discontinued in the late 90s.

Learning the way to drive hasn't been as hard as I expected. I've been watching the traffic and others drive for 14 months. I do very frequently turn on the wipers when I mean to signal. And I also always turn to look over the wrong shoulder when backing. Shifting gears with my left hand isn't too bad (the pedals thankfully are the same). We're very thankful for the flexibility that the car is providing.

BROMO!!!

To see the sunrise on Bromo, you have to get an early start. The alarm went off about 3:30 and we were on our way a couple of minutes after 4.
It was dark, raining a bit and foggy. There were a few times we couldn't see anything of where we were going. But our driver had driven the road hundreds of times. (I could do several entries just on our transportation experiences on this trip, but, for now, I'll just make a few comments along the way.)

Here we are, around the time we were supposed to be watching the sun rise (about 5:10 AM). The gray background is fog. The sun came up, but we couldn't prove it!
Here is one of our first glimpses of the ash rising from the volcano. For a while, this would appear and quickly vanish in the clouds.

We were very thankful when the volcano finally appeared. The pictures in the clouds do justice to what we could see then. The low resolution pictures of the (clearer) view don't. The amount of ash pouring from the volcano was amazing.

In the distance to the south, is Semeru, the highest point on Java (12,060 ft). Bromo is at about 7550 ft. Our lookout point was at an elevation of about 8850 ft. (For a better resolution photo of what can look like shortly after sun rise, click here.)

The elevation, dark, wind and dampness made it feel pretty chilly. It was probably somewhere around 50. So, we all bundled up. Here is our whole motley crew.

This isn't our vehicle, but this is the basic idea. It was a little cramped with 8 people (including driver), but it worked since several are still pretty small.

Here we are in the Jeep about 3 hours after we got up. We were awake, warm, and thus, smiling.

Another aside about transportation. We descended to the base of the volcano down the steepest road I've ever seen. It was also full of pot holes, places where it was erroded, and there were a number of places where dirt and rocks from above had partially obstructed it. It was also quite narrow, making passing other vehicles an adventure. I was never frightened, but almost always a bit on edge. The picture doesn't do it justice either. We saw a couple of trucks that weren't four-wheel drive, but I don't know how they could have climbed this road.

Here we are crossing the "sea of sand" to the base of Bromo. In dry season the ground here is white and loose, much more like sand at the beach. Yes, our vehicle was headed the same direction as these Jeeps. We weren't 100% sure this was the best of ideas.

This is as close as we got. Somewhere inside a 1/2 mile. More than 1/4 mile, I think. Usually, you can climb up to and go inside the rim. But it's been much more active since late November, so that part is closed.

I also took a couple of panoramics. The full res versions of these are linked here: up high and down low.

Noises in the dark

Last weekend, Beth woke me up about 3 in the morning. She was in near hysterics - "There's a rat in here!" 'Here' being in our bathroom. There's a sort of skylight at the edge of the room, but it has a screen instead of glass. The rat had fallen through the screen.

We have an adolescent cat which has only caught lizards so far, so I thought this was a good opportunity for a lesson. I ran to the garage and returned promptly with the cat. The rat didn't have much of anywhere to hide, so it climbed behind the hot water heater cover.

The cat tried to get it out, and we tried turning on the hot water (an in-line gas contraption; no tank). This wasn't too effective.

Don't be deceived by the picture. The cat didn't kill the rat. The cat got bitten and was subsequently scared of the rat. So, we cranked the flame on the hot water heater until he got singed and emerged. Then, I (David) smacked him with a broom. UGH!

Here is the injured rat. Nice, huh?
As you can imagine, that wasn't one of our better night's sleep recently! But, most importantly, the hot water heater wasn't damaged.

Up the mountain

Two posts today - be sure to scroll down to see the other one.

At the end of August, we had a chance to visit a family that lives up in the mountains. We roughly estimate the elevation to be around 5500 ft. It was a great time to be away from the city for a couple of nights - and the climate is very different up there.

Out of the back window was a beautiful view. In the early morning, it was clear and beautiful, but by late morning the clouds and fog would settle in.


We were glad to be away from the city heat. It was 52 in the house on Sunday morning! We also were able to have a fire on Saturday evening - we all enjoyed that.
We didn't just rest. One thing we did was help teach an English class Saturday morning.

The local people work at agriculture, growing many kinds of vegetables throughout the year. This made the countryside look like a patch-work quilt.

This is actually a tourist area, so there is a 4-star hotel up there!

There are many Hindus in the area. They leave out food as an offering to the spirits in structures like this one.

The basketball team

Nathanael is part of the basketball club at Charis. They practice every Friday, and occasionally have games. Here are some pictures from one of his games. He has a tournament at the end of October here in the city.

Independence Day

Independence day in Indonesia is unique. I think the main reason for this is that it is the primary non-religious holiday of the year. Therefore, everyone can celebrate together, regardless of who they are.
In preparation for the holiday (early August), everyone spruces up their yards, frontage, streets, etc. The flag is proudly displayed. Red and white is put up everywhere. And everyone here is proud.
Our yard is no exception. However, our flagpole had a branch hanging over its top. So, I had to climb a try to cut down that branch before we could put up our flag.


Traditionally, each neighborhood has a celebration with food and games. This year was a bit different because Independence Day coincides with the fast. So, we went to our language school to enjoy some I.D. activities.

First, we cooked fish. They broke us into groups and made it a cooking contest. So each group prepared a few fish by their recipe. As an afterthought, we added hush puppies to our fare. Here I am cooking those.

After cooking the fish, it was on to the games. These are all traditional Independence Day games here. One was a race to fan a balloon over a distance of about 30 ft. Elijah tried this one. It turned out that the wind was more of a factor than the contestants' skill. (It was an unusually windy day.)

Nathanael and Moriah tried carrying a marble in a spoon back and forth.

Here is my moment of victory in the 'putting a ball-point pen in a bottle' game. Not as easy as it looks. As you can see, the Indonesian spectators get excited.

Moriah and Nathanael also tried the kerupuk eating contest. Think of it as hanging a rice cake from a string at nose level and trying to eat it without using your hands (or drinking water for that matter). Moriah placed second because of her unique ability to grab the food with her lips and work it down into her mouth to get decent sized bites.

A short hike

In the afternoon, we took a short hike up the muddy trail. Everyone had a good time.


Some ladies go up the same trail to collect fire wood.
For others, this wasn't a walking trail, but a motor bike road. We saw quite a few men on bikes carrying items collected or harvested up in the mountains.



The view was worth it! Sorry the picture doesn't do it justice.

Up here at the top was also where Beth stepped off the edge of the trail. The grass was tall, so it looked like good ground to stand on. But she and Elijah, whom she was carrying, ended up in a pile in the tall grass.

PS - This is back to back posts - so be sure to scroll down to the next one(s).

Traveling out in the country

We finally had a chance to get out into the countryside again. There is some beautiful scenery in the mountains.


Even though this is an extremely densely populated island, there is a lot of space out there for agriculture. The land is very fertile. It was fun to see the irrigation systems working to keep the rice paddies wet. "Paddy" is a term borrowed from Malay/Indonesian. Here, they have four words for rice, depending on the form it is in. Padi is rice still on the plant.

Travel was interesting. It reminded me a lot of travel in the Philippines (outside the cities). A lot of different kinds of vehicles going a lot of different speeds on a two lane (at the most) road. This required us to overtake (pass) frequently, which was a bit unnerving. From my more western perspective, the driver seemed to take a lot of risks; the locals didn't feel he was too bad. It wasn't as bad as my experience in the Philippines - maybe because it was the second time in transportation situations like this, maybe because we weren't in a dinky van speeding toward large trucks this time.

We were thankful to be traveling in a bus. It wasn't a very luxurious ride, but it beat the mode of transportation seen below. The motto for vehicles here: "There's always room for one more."

Why were we out in the country? To attend a wedding. More to come...

An anniversary outing

One of our friends here offered to keep the kids for us to get an anniversary date. This is a big year for us - 15! She had the week wrong, but we went ahead and took her up on her offer. Actually, she suggested the idea to Beth who kept it a secret from me (David). It was a wonderful surprise.

Anyway, we had a good time at one of the nicest restaurants in town. They even have napkins there (albeit paper napkins)! Napkins are a Western concept that haven't really caught on here so much. I'm a big napkin guy...

In the picture, I'm wearing a Batik. It's the dressy shirt for formal occasions here. They're nice because it's much cooler than wearing a coat and tie (although some people do that, too).

Maybe we'll get a chance to celebrate a little more next week!

To the Beach!!!

We walked down the street to meet the tour bus at 5:45am to head to the beach, 2 hours south.




The first stop was at our language school, where most everyone else planned to meet the bus. (We got special treatment because we live right down the street from the school from which we rented the bus) The bus was full of our friends and tutors from language school. Also, several cars full of more folks from our group drove down. On the way there, many of our lively tutors serenaded us with Indonesian songs and silly quips. It was great, noisy fun!


The only way to the beach is over the mountains. It literally felt like we were climbing in altitude to get to the beach, and then, we were suddenly there at the southern coast of the island of Java.

We got a glimpse of Javanese desa (village) life along the way.

Once arriving, we changed into our water clothes (swim suits, etc) and prepared to go to "the beach" on another island. The only way to "the beach" is by boat. Above are some of the boats that line the shores of Java. Beyond the boats, you can see the inland side of the island to which we went for the day. Elijah enjoyed looking at all the boats (below).

Upon arriving at the beach site, our tutors immediately built a fire (while it was raining) and began cooking the fish they purchased on the coast before we boated to our beach spot. It was delicious. All six of us enjoyed the catch of the day!

We ate our fish Indonesian style - with rice, of course (brought in slow cookers - I don't want to think how early someone must have risen to cook that!) and with our hands. We brought spoons but found it much easier just to eat with your fingers.

Sandy shores and gentle waves. Nestled between the islands, our beach spot afforded a distant view of a Java waterfall and great sand for packing and making into sand balls. We even built a few sand men (like snow men, but with sand). We hear if you hike through the woods during dry season for about 2 hours, you can reach a lagoon on the other side of the island, complete with cliffs and a beautiful view of the Indian ocean. We will save such adventures for another day and time.

(Although not pictured) Many other Indonesian guests took great delight in having their picture made with our children. They would wrap an arm around one of our kids and pose as their friends snapped a picture. It happened several times and all our children were cooperative and smiled warmly for these strangers. We are still not sure whether they realized the Indonesians asking for these photo ops were not part of our group.

One of the boats that took half our group back and forth from island to island. The engine was loud and at one point, stopped working, leaving us to drift with the tide waters. Elijah found that watching the boats from the shore was a lot more pleasant than riding on them. He wasn't too keen on the loud noises. As we reached the shore of Java once more, he said, "Mommy, I non't yike dat boat."

All in a day's adventures at the beach in Indonesia!